"Let me see if I understand what you are saying." He paused and looked at his notebook. "You lived a life, a fairly long life into your fifties. Then, as if in a dream…" He looked again at the notebook. "you wake in your bedroom from your teen years, you are seventeen again, and you meet a girl — a girl that you don't remember from your youth."

Steve interrupted, "I don't remember hardly any of the people from my High School if they weren't friends of mine."

"Granted." He paused and looks down at the notebook again. "You become friends with this girl, and after a week you wake up again in a hospital. The memories of your first life seem like a dream, and the second life are the new reality. Do I have it right?"

"So far." Steve looked down. His face stiffened. "Unfortunately the first life is a reality, it is a very vivid memory, and the second life has a gap of more than thirty years, and that gap (to me) is that first reality."

"I don't know how to make it clear to you without seeming to be delusional. It is as if I have slipped into another dimension of time — like a parallel universe."

"A parallel universe."

"I'm not saying that that is true, I am saying that that is the only conclusion that makes sense." Steve was getting frustrated "I don't have to tell you this."

"I'm just trying to understand."

"I realize, I understand. I wouldn't believe you if I was in your place. It seems like the life I am now in is the life I would choose as a means of escaping." Steve stopped and looked up at the ceiling. He sighed.

"So the life that you say you used to live was a more difficult life."

"The problem is that in that life I had a wife. I had two sons. I had friends. I have memories that are vivid and real. If I am in this life here what do I do with the old life. How can I find closure? If they are really gone how do I mourn their loss? Also, I am living a life in which I have no memories. I am living with a woman that in my mind I never married. She has memories that have no meaning for me. In my heart I am living someone else's life, or at least a life that is not mine."

"I don't really know exactly how to answer you. You seem sincere even though you seem delusional. Is it possible that the other life is the fantasy? Maybe somehow you wish that you were living this other life."

"So, if wishes had wings would we fly?"

"What?"

"Exactly. Thank you Doctor. I think I know what to do." Steve got up and walked to the door. He turned back to the doctor. "I will be Ok." Steve opened the door.

Julie got up and looked at him. "You Ok?"

"I think so. I just have to live with the fact that I will never, uh, remember the life that we lived."

"Maybe we need to start over." She pressed her lips together. She held back the tears.

"Maybe we need to start over." He looked down. He looked up, and bit his lower lip. "Uh, Umm, Hi, my name is Steve."

"Hi, I'm Julie." She hesitated. She held her hand up.

Steve took her hand. He held it between both his hands. "Hello Julie." Taking a breath. "It's nice to meet you."

Julie smiled. It seemed a little absurd, but it was somewhat sweet. It felt like they were really two people who were somehow meeting for the first time, or she felt comfortable playing like it was true. "Are you hungry…" She stopped herself from saying ‘now'. "There is a coffee shop down the street."

"I'm a little hungry, sure let's go. Let's see how it goes."

"I have a couple of paperbacks."

"Are they any good?"

"I have no idea. We'll find out. It's worth a try."

"Sure, why not."

They stood on the step of the Psychiatrists office. The night was a little cold. Together they reached out their hands. They both smiled. Steve took her hand, and they walked down the steps and down the sidewalk. Steve stopped and held both of her hands, he kissed her on her forehead, then he kissed her lightly on the lips.

Sure why not.